I don't really like getting into long debates on forums about these things. But I'll just post some recent quotes and info that again calls these extraordinary measures being taken into question:
"Taking account of historical experience, trends in the data, increased number of infections in the population at largest, and potential impact of misclassification of deaths gives a presumed estimate for the COVID-19 IFR between 0.1% and 0.26%."
Oxford University (
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/)
"I would say the best advice is to spend less time watching TV news which is sensational and not very good. Personally, I view this Covid outbreak as akin to a bad winter influenza epidemic." (
https://novuscomms.com/2020/03/31/a...orphan-orph-laboratory-professor-john-oxford/)
John Oxford - Professor
John Sydney Oxford (born 6 March 1942) is an English
virologist, Professor of
Queen Mary, University of London. He is a leading expert on
influenza, including
bird flu and the
1918 Spanish Influenza, and
HIV/AIDS.
"There are no indications that anything is different from regular flu"
(10 mins 45 secs)
Professor Knut Wittkowski, for twenty years head of The Rockefeller University's Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design
"New evidence has emerged from China indicating that the large majority of coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms.
Chinese authorities began publishing daily figures on 1 April on the number of new coronavirus cases that are asymptomatic, with the first day’s figures suggesting that around four in five coronavirus infections caused no illness. Many experts believe that unnoticed, asymptomatic cases of coronavirus infection could be an important source of contagion.
A total of 130 of 166 new infections (78%) identified in the 24 hours to the afternoon of Wednesday 1 April were asymptomatic, said China’s National Health Commission. And most of the 36 cases in which patients showed symptoms involved arrivals from overseas, down from 48 the previous day, the commission said.
China is rigorously testing arrivals from overseas for fear of importing a fresh outbreak of covid-19.
Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the findings were “very, very important.” He told
The BMJ, “The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out, then this suggests the virus is everywhere. If—and I stress, if—the results are representative, then we have to ask,
‘What the hell are we locking down for?’” (
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375)